wow, takes a while to level up to the top. although with the new incentives they given people, the buddy-system thing, leveling is pretty damn easy. but aside from that it takes a f*** a** long time to level. its not really that its easy, its just that it takes a long time.

as for items, with arena, items are easy, but with raids its really different. honestly, i think arena screwed the game up.

My shamy hit 60 in like 9 days of in game time, and was my twink for awhile so came with about 2k honor then. I've leveled a few then... After awhile one pretty much knows the quests, what quests to grab together, etc; the time element largely disappears.

Now you throw the easy mode to many of the old world stuff (the mob you kill for the key to SG used to be an elite; but is now a normal mob that is lower level then most mobs in the zone itself, it's become like nothing. Overseer Maltorious, a quest I used to need help on back in 2006ish, I can solo on a guy at lvl 46 (well the druid it was easy, and wasn't bad on the shamy either). Back when Gilthanas and I played together, we routinely soloed and 2 manned a fair number of challenges some thought would require groups. If we had our a*ses handed to us, we came back at a latter time and just laughed in the face of the same challenge, as well it wasn't really one anymore. Now, with the removing of the elite status of most things, it isn't even as funny anymore and doing things like soloing Dragonkin Menace in burning steppes at lvl 51 wouldn't be impressive today, as it was back in 2006.

The lvling is easy, especially after many a game nerf. Things start up more when one hits end game, if they're looking for something other then easy mode; especially since blizzard changed things to make it easier for newer people....